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Hezekiah Consults Isaiah

When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the L ord. ²And he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. ⁴It may be that the L ord your God heard the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the L ord your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.”

⁵ When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, ⁶Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the L ord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. ⁷I myself will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor, and return to his own land; I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’ ”

⁸ The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah; for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. ⁹Now the king heard concerning King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, “He has set out to fight against you.” When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Thus shall you speak to King Hezekiah of Judah: Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹See, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered? ¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my predecessors destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?”

Hezekiah’s Prayer

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then Hezekiah went up to the house of the L ord and spread it before the L ord. ¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed to the L ord, saying: ¹⁶“O L ord of hosts, God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷Incline your ear, O L ord, and hear; open your eyes, O L ord, and see; hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. ¹⁸Truly, O L ord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, ¹⁹and have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods, but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed. ²⁰So now, O L ord our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the L ord.”

²¹ Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying: “Thus says the L ord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, ²²this is the word that the L ord has spoken concerning him:

She despises you, she scorns you—

virgin daughter Zion;

she tosses her head—behind your back,

daughter Jerusalem.

“Whom have you mocked and reviled?

Against whom have you raised your voice

and haughtily lifted your eyes?

Against the Holy One of Israel!

By your servants you have mocked the Lord,

and you have said, ‘With my many chariots

I have gone up the heights of the mountains,

to the far recesses of Lebanon;

I felled its tallest cedars,

its choicest cypresses;

I came to its remotest height,

its densest forest.

I dug wells

and drank waters,

I dried up with the sole of my foot

all the streams of Egypt.’

“Have you not heard

that I determined it long ago?

I planned from days of old

what now I bring to pass,

that you should make fortified cities

crash into heaps of ruins,

while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,

are dismayed and confounded;

they have become like plants of the field

and like tender grass,

like grass on the housetops,

blighted before it is grown.

“I know your rising up and your sitting down,

your going out and coming in,

and your raging against me.

Because you have raged against me

and your arrogance has come to my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth;

I will turn you back on the way

by which you came.

³⁰ “And this shall be the sign for you: This year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that; then in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. ³¹The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; ³²for from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out, and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the L ord of hosts will do this.

³³ “Therefore thus says the L ord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, shoot an arrow there, come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege ramp against it. ³⁴By the way that he came, by the same he shall return; he shall not come into this city, says the L ord. ³⁵For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death

³⁶ Then the angel of the L ord set out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; when morning dawned, they were all dead bodies. ³⁷Then King Sennacherib of Assyria left, went home, and lived at Nineveh. ³⁸As he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. His son Esar-haddon succeeded him.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

35. And I will be a protector. This is the reason of the preceding statement, why Sennacherib should not enter into the city; because the Lord will protect it. The Prophet therefore bids Hezekiah and the whole nation turn their eyes towards God, because the sight of that tyrant was so alarming that they might tremble at it. In like manner, if we now contemplate the power of our enemies, we shall be overpowered by fear, and there will scarcely be any room for hope; but we ought to look directly to God, and embrace his promises, by which we are defended as by a shield; and since God is sufficiently powerful to restrain a mortal man, to him ought we to turn our eyes; for this promise must not be limited to that time, but ought to be extended to all times. Yet the expression used by the Prophet is more extensive, and conveys fuller meaning; for God affirms that he will be the guardian and protector of the city; that is, because he had pledged himself to defend it. Hence he infers that it will be preserved, because God’s protection renders its preservation certain.

For my own sake. When he says that he will do this “for his own sake,” he calls on Hezekiah and all believers to remember his gracious covenant For the Jews, though often and severely chastised, had obstinately provoked the wrath of God against them, and therefore deserved not only that he should deprive them of all assistance, but that he should execute against them the highest examples of dreadful vengeance. In order therefore to prevent them from despairing, he shews that God will be their defender, not because he finds any cause in them, but rather because he looks to himself first, that he may adhere firmly to his purpose, not to cast away the posterity of Abraham which he adopted, not to abolish religious worship, not to blot out the remembrance of his name on the earth by destroying his sanctuary; and, secondly, not to expose his name to the jeers and blasphemies of the nations. And these words contain an implied reproof which that nation ought to have felt to be severe, and justly; because the good king had more difficulty in pacifying them than in repelling the enemy; for they distrusted, and stormed, and thought that no hope of safety was left for them. The Lord, therefore, did not look at the merits of the people or of any other person, but only had regard to his own glory; for the contrast which is expressed by Ezekiel must here be understood, “Not for your sakes, O house of Israel, will I do this, but for my own sake.” ⁷⁰⁷⁰ “Pour l’amour de mon sainct nom,” “For the love of my holy name.” (Ezekiel 36:22.) Now, since we have the same argument to plead in the present day, let us not hesitate to make use of this shield against our sins, “Though we most highly deserve a thousand deaths, yet it is enough for God to look to his goodness and faithfulness, that he may fulfill what he hath promised.” Though it is of no advantage to hypocrites that God is the continual protector of his Church, yet the elect will always have this as a very safe refuge, that although they bring nothing of their own to appease the wrath of God, yet since God, moved by nothing else than his infinite goodness, built his Church and determined to defend it, he will never suffer it to perish.

And for my servant David’s sake. This is highly worthy of observation; for although God needed not to seek in any one but in himself the reason why he embraced that nation with a gracious regard, yet it is not without good reason that he brings forward, as a very sure pledge of his love, David, by whose hand he had made a covenant, and to whom he, had promised to be a Father. (2 Samuel 7:12.) The Prophet does not speak of David as a private individual, but as a holy king whose throne was established by the hand of God, under whose guidance the Church would continue to be safe, and, in short, who would be the mediator between God and the Church; for in this capacity he surpassed even the angels themselves, so far as he represented the person of Christ. His throne was, indeed, soon afterwards cast down, and his crown torn in pieces, yet this was no unmeaning confirmation, that God intended to protect the city for a time, because he determined not to make void what he had testified to David concerning the eternity of his kingdom. And we know that the captivity of the people did not wholly set aside the kingly power in the posterity of David till at length Christ came, who on this account is called David in other passages. (Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 37:24; Hosea 3:5.)

This shews the great absurdity of the Papists in alleging that it is through the merits of the saints that God pardons us; for here the case of David is widely different from that of other saints, on account of the promise which had been made to him. He might have named Abraham, or any other person, who possessed no small authority in the Church; but since he was now speaking of the preservation of the Church, and of the eternity of the kingdom of Christ, he named in a peculiar manner him who expressly, along with others, received that promise, “This is my rest, here will I dwell.” (Psalm 132:14.) Since therefore this passage has regard to the promise, and not to the person, the Papists are doubly foolish in thinking that it affords support to the intercession of the saints, which is of their own contrivance. On the contrary, what they plead in their own behalf absolutely contradicts their error; because David is here represented as the type of the only Mediator, who sets aside the intercessions which they have invented.

⁷⁰ “Pour l’amour de mon sainct nom,” “For the love of my holy name.”